French Misadventures

A few pictures (few of many). I just figured out how to put them up so they are big enough to see and appreciate.

View from the Sacre-Coeur

Josephine Bonaparte's pearl earrings

Lucy mad at the totally useless and expensive Versailles tram service

the chapel at Versailles

View of Queen Marie Antoinette's hamlet (make believe peasant village)

Roberto Benini!! at the Cesar Awards

View from ballroom at FontainebleauView of Honfleur in Normandy
The dungeon at Chateau de Vincennes
Very strange ballet we saw - Coppelia
cool car exhibit on Champs-Elysees

First of all, you have to believe me when I tell you that the past couple of weeks have been quite the succession of mini-adventures. I have a lot to catch up on. Frankly, I don’t know where to start.

I guess my trip to Normandy is as good a place as any. To be honest, I was not as pumped about this particular excursion because I had already seen many of the attractions three years ago when I came with Mme Blanpied and the gang from high school. On the agenda were, yet again, the American cemetery, the Normandy beaches, and the War Museum at Caen. My program heads felt, as had the program we traveled with three years ago, that it was an important patriotic pilgrimage for Americans in Europe. For me, it’s not that difficult to appreciate what happened and it all kind of looked like Arlington. It was not time wasted by any means, but I wish we had had more time to actually spend soaking up all the northern French culture…and seafood.

We started in Honfleur, a town famous for its many artists and poets of the past, and wandered through its small and lovely scenery. It reminded me of St. Malo, in Bretagne, but smaller. After a tasty lunch of Moulles Provencale (mussels in tomato sauce and vegetables) on the harbor with Koa and Clay, our program leader surprised us all with a 15 minute hike up the steepest mountain in history to see a view of the town.

Afterward, we moved onto a tour of the Coeur de Lion distillery, which specializes in alcoholic cider and apple wine.

On the way to our hotel, an old estate directly on the beach, we drove through Deauville and Trouville, famous gambling playgrounds of the rich and home to the famous film festival.

The next morning, at the crack of dawn, we headed for Omaha Beach and the American Cemetary – where there is a significantly fewer number of Jews and I didn’t find any South Carolinians – and then drove to see the Tapestry of Bayeux and lunch in the town. In no effort to impress my program heads, I chose the British audio guide of the tapestry and had WAY more fun than everybody else. The French audio guides didn’t feature a snooty old dude saying things like, “Notice the embellishment of the decapitated bodies strewn across the bottom frieze of the tapestry. Isn’t it simply uncanny?”

Afterward, moving right along to the Memorial at Caen, which was sponsoring a very large conference for attorneys, which was kind of…cool…

Hold up – my window has a direct view of the street in front of my house and there seems to be a pack of French high schoolers outside getting into a big fight. I keep hearing “Arret! Doucement!” and I think they just threw one them into a trash can. I’m betting big money these are friends of my host sister. Whenever there are thugs hanging around outside my house this has been the trend.

Anyway, the museum featured a newer exhibit on the Americans in Normandy, and they had a collection of belongings of the soldier that I found familiar and comforting. Among their possessions were baseball mits, playing cards, guides of French expressions (probably on ordering beers and picking up women), Marlboros and records. Despite the fact that these things were probably obtained from soldiers that had died in the fighting, it felt like there was something comforting in these familiar personal items – remnants of a culture that hasn’t changed all that much.

Oh man! The plot outside my window thickens. I am watching very conspicuously, I am sure. So now, the French ambulance has arrived and put a very drunk girl on the vehicle. There is a group of 6 also intoxicated boys outside who appear to be pretty shaken. One boy in particular seems to be cooperating, but one scrawny kid that kind of looks like McLovin from Superbad keeps saying, “Ah, putain!” (not a nice word) and the others keep telling him to shut up. The EMT asked them to find her cell phone so he could call the girl’s parents, evoking another burst of profanity, and a couple of “oh, shit”s. Now, the EMT asked if she had been smoking marijuana tonight. Five boys said, “No, officer! She hasn’t been smoking” and one kid said, “yes, I think so.”

Parents have just shown up. One of the boy’s mom is here and she is pissed. Drunk girl’s mom is in the ambulance with her and the neighbors have stepped outside – including my host parents and the man next door. Ambulance has driven off. Phew. Talk about a little small town drama. We all may as well have come out on our front porches with our binoculars and written it down in the town newsletter. What a fiasco!

So back to my update…

After the Normandy trip, some friends and I decided to take advantage of the new Spring weather with a couple of day trips. First, Kate and I headed off to the Chateau de Vincennes, historic fortress and royal residence – and later very famous dungeon for political prisoners of the state. For example, the Marquis de Sade, Napoleon’s confessor, and many other authors and government ministers. We also paid a visit to Victor Hugo’s house (did I mention this in an earlier post?)

Later, a group of us were blessed with a gorgeous weekend and went out to Fontainebleau. Kate, Koa, Tess (one of the few new kids we don’t want to deport) and I, got an opportunity to be the big dorks that we are. I got the most glee out of my knowledge of the chateau as one of Josephine and Napoleon’s favorite residences, and the architecture which I had studied in an old survey class.

After Fontainebleau, we went through some pretty welcome downtime, mainly caught up in choosing classes for the semester and getting ourselves oriented.

This semester, I have chosen to take Contemporary French Art, the second half of the Theatre Course with Professor Cutiepants, a grammar course I am stuck in against my own will, the Fables of LaFontaine, and Medieval Poetry (both the lesser of many evils that made up the Litterature course offerings this semester. I refuse to read any more Balzac.) On the plus side, my poetry professor broke her foot and we haven’t had class in three weeks. Not bad.

The most recent activity has been during the past week, when Lucy Fitzgerald Bullock and her friend Sarah invaded Paris – and my little guest house – from Wednesday to the following Tuesday. It was absolutely one of the most exciting and – as Mom will tell you – expensive weeks since I have been in Paris. It was terrific to see Lucy (the first time in months) and to be a tourist again. We spent the week shopping, revisiting old sights like the Notre Dame, the Tour Eiffel, the Champs-Elysées, the Père Lachaise Cemetary, and Versailles.

Thanks in many ways to Lucy’s amazing talent for making friends, we met people everywhere we went. We are convinced that we spent Monday night with Mischa Barton and, the COOLEST NEWS…

Every year at school I throw a party on Oscar Night. Granted, often this party consists of me canceling my evening plans, buying a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, and watching the show from the start of the red carpet countdown to the last goodnight, but it is a time honored tradition. This year, seeing as I am in a Europe, poor me did not get to watch the ceremony. BUT, on Friday night Lucy, Sarah, and I were wandering Chatelet for an inexpensive restaurant (which is, by the way, non-existent) and what did we see across the street from the Theatre de la Ville, but the 33^rd Annual César Awards!! (Translation: the French Oscars) I could have stayed there all night long watching the limos pull up, but we were trying to make it to Late Night at the Louvre. It seems that Marion Cotillard showed up later and later won the Best Actress Award in both America and France, but I DID see Roberto Benini (winner of Best Director and Best Actor for Life is Beautiful – the guy who walked up the Oscar stage on the backs of the chairs – if you don’t recognize him then you have to go out and rent the movie right now and bring tissue. I cried like a baby.) He gave a big wave to the audience and jumped up and down for the paparazzi. The French actresses were so beautiful – and their shoes were awesome!

Another good story from Lucy’s trip. After partying with Mischa Barton, Lu, Sarah and I headed back to the night bus stop for about a 20 minute wait. While we sat there, three not-bad-looking French guys walked up and asked me a question about the bus in French. Since French men seem to have no control over themselves, they naturally had to stay and try to hit on us. One of the better looking ones asked me if we were British. I replied that I was, but when they looked at Lucy, she whipped out her high school German and stumped them all. Lucy could look German in a pinch and, to our luck, none of them spoke German. One of the boys asked her a question in very broken English, and she looked at me as if she didn’t understand and said something in German. Not understanding a word she was saying, either, I replied in total and utter gibberish disguised as German. We kept this up for 20 minutes and we had these guys totally stumped! I wasn’t sure for a while if they bought it, but Lucy and I kept cracking up and they kept looking at me and asking me to translate what she said – but, of course, I had no idea. Eventually, one of the boys was like “So, you’re English but you speak German and French?” and I said, “Yes”, and that I had gone to school in Germany.

Among the greatest moments…Lucy doesn’t speak any French except certain phrases and expressions. So, all week long she had been saying “Alsace-Lorraine” to people in a terrible accent. The Alsace-Lorraine is a region of eastern France that has historically alternated as both a French and German territory. In effect, people would say to her, “Merci” and she would reply, “Alsace-Lorraine!” and embarrass me all over Paris. So, at one point talking to these dumb guys at the bus stop, Lucy started saying all of the French terms she knew in a German accent.

Anyway, one last story before I wrap up this update. My host family is going skiing in the Alps tomorrow – or maybe they leave Saturday morning – and I don’t think I’m hiding my excitement very well. I’m pretty sure they think I’m going to have a party but, in fact, I have a 10 page paper due Monday and I could really appreciate the freedom, the space, and the unlimited computer access. I might even just move into the big house for the weekend. On the other hand, I think they might kill each other on their vacation and never come back. They are fighting ALL the time! It’s really gotten awful – even worse since Lucy and Sarah were here. I ate dinner as quickly as possible tonight just to get out of the line of fire. Everybody is yelling at everybody else. Thank god I have my own space or I might even move.

I have a lot of homework happening this week and next, but my friends and I are leaving for four terrific days in IRELAND on Thursday of next week! We’ll be in Doolin, a small town in County Clare on the northwest coast right on the Cliffs of Moher. They still speak Gallic and it has a strong musical tradition, not to mention biking and horseback riding on the beach. I can’t stand it I’m so excited!

I am still debating going to Nice next semester. It’s another trip with my friends – which are always fun – but money is a BIG factor. It is the difference between me having a life in Paris all month, or being broke all month because of a four day vacation. But, it’s Nice!! Ugh.

Alright guys, that’s all from me for now. I promise to write again after Ireland with lots of pictures and good stories about how I fell off a horse, got lost in the Irish countryside, and sang “Danny Boy” to the crowd at Karaoke Night at O’Donnell’s Pub.